Hurricane Takes a Further Toll: Suicides Up in New Orleans

[funkybutt]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/national/nationalspecial/27suicides.html

Jeff Wellborn, administrator of the Police Department's mobile mental health squad, said members of his unit were being called in frequently when a homeowner, witnessing the extent of losses for the first time, broke down.

"They're coming into town, and they get so depressed they can't handle it anymore," Mr. Wellborn said. "Most of the time they are crying."

"These are not the same people we dealt with before the storm," he said. "They had no mental health history. We are seeing almost exclusively new patients."

"Looking down a street where it's house after house, and the garbage and the innards of the houses, there's something about it that people in general can't grasp," Dr. Dorsey said. "It's not within the realm of any experience anyone's ever had. Your ordinary American doesn't have that in their repertoire of experience."

another article about a local filmaker who took his life --> http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2005-12-27/news_feat2.php

[MountainLaurel]

1. That's not surprising

How many hundreds of thousands of people struggling with PTSD while they're also struggling to survive now that they've lost their jobs and homes and families? And yet, there's a contingent around who says these folks should just pick themselves up and get over it. :eyes:

[applegrove]

2. Like the Homeland Security Department has never heard of PTSD

and the longer the trial by fire goes on - the more vulnerable to the illness any person will become.

Nice that the Bush WHITE HOUSE was playing "Governor give us an "itemized list" and stop talking in blanket statements like everything you got".